She continued to hold the girl's trembling hands in a strong, protecting clasp, while she still gazed steadily into her eyes, until, as if overcome by a will stronger than her own—her physical strength being well-nigh exhausted—the white lids gradually drooped, the rigid form relaxed, the lines smoothed themselves out of her brow, and she was soon sleeping quietly and restfully.
When her regular breathing assured the watcher beside her that oblivion had sealed her senses for the time, she bent over her, touched her lips softly to her forehead, and murmured:
"Dear heart, they shall never hold you to that wicked ceremony—to that unholy bond! If the law will not cancel it, if they have sprung the trap upon you so cunningly that the court cannot free you, they shall at least leave you in peace and virtually free, and you shall never want for a friend as long as—as—Gertrude Weld lives," she concluded, a peculiar smile wreathing her lips.
While this strange woman sat in that third-story room and watched her sleeping patient, the hours sped by on rapid wings to the merry dancers below, very few of whom concerned themselves about, or even knew of, the tragic ending of the marriage which they had witnessed earlier in the evening.
But oh, how heavily these hours dragged to one among that smiling throng!
Anna Goddard could scarcely control her impatience for her guests to be gone—for the terrible farce to end.
How terrible it all was to her not one of the gay people around her could suspect, for she was obliged to fawn and smile as if she were in thorough sympathy with the scene, and to attend to her duties as hostess and to all the petty details required by so-called etiquette, in order to preserve the prestige which she had acquired for entertaining handsomely.
But there was a deadly fear at her heart—an agony of apprehension, a dread of a fate which, to her, would have been worse than death.
Her husband and brother had disappeared entirely from the ball-room, a circumstance which only added to her perplexity and distress.
When she saw signs of the ball breaking up she sent an imperative message to her husband to join her, for she knew that it would cause unpleasant remarks if the master of the house should fail to put in an appearance to "speed the parting guest."